In a recent presentation at the IAB MIXX advertising conference, Joel Lunenfeld, Twitter’s VP of global brand strategy, said that 88 percent of Twitter users follow at least one brand. More than half follow six or more, he said.
“Twitter also studied the reasons why someone follows a brand, and as you might expect, freebies and discounts are definitely a factor. But according to Lunenfeld, people also said they were interested in getting access to exclusive or promotional content,” writes TechCrunch.
Lunenfeld gave some examples of successful brand engagement on Twitter, summarized by TechCrunch: “A tweet from Old Spice asking, ‘Why is it that fire sauce isn’t made from real fire? Seems like false advertising.’ To which Taco Bell responded, ‘Is your deodorant made with really old spices?’ (Old Spice: ‘Depends. Do you consider volcanoes, tanks, and freedom to be spices?’).”
This example showcases the potential for brand-to-brand and brand-to-customer interaction, as well as the potential for conversational ad campaigns.
“As for where the Twitter advertising goes from here, Lunenfeld noted that brands are trying to become more mobile, more real-time, and more local — all strong points for the company,” suggests the post. “He added that Twitter is working to develop ‘more and more ways to get a message across inside a tweet.'”
Yahoo, AOL and YouTube are working together with the Commission on Presidential Debates to launch “The Voice Of” depots for the general election debates, allowing people to watch the debates live and interact via online tools.
“The 2012 debates can be the foundation for a season of conversation, and the Internet initiative will provide unprecedented access for citizens to participate in that conversation,” explains CPD co-chairs Michael McCurry and Frank Fahrenkopf in a statement.
A counter will keep track of how many viewers are tuned in via the depots. “For example, if 100,000 people are watching, the headline on the sites will read ‘The Voice Of 100,000,'” reports Politico.
The debates will also showcase the debut of Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Election, which allows subscribers to watch a raw feed of the debates while using motion sensors or Xbox controllers to register moment-to-moment reactions,” notes the article.
Facebook hosted three-and-a-half hours of live programming the night before the first presidential debate, featuring notable guests and panel discussions. Questions were submitted by Facebook users for panelists and interview subjects.
And according to Politico: “While the rest of the social media crowd is striving to be nonpartisan, the news-sharing site Reddit is using the debates as a moment for tech-industry and Internet freedom activism. Reddit is co-sponsoring the Internet 2012 Bus Tour, an eight-day, nine-city tour from Denver to Danville, Ky., the site of the vice presidential debate on October 11.”
The bus will stop for community events along the way to promote “more high-skilled visas for tech companies and better trade agreements to benefit American startups,” while highlighting concerns about legislation that could threaten Internet freedom.
YouTube has announced that for the first time the October general election debates will be available online via live streaming.
“You can watch the debates live and in full on the YouTube Elections Hub, via our partners at ABC News, who will be live streaming all four debates on the ABC News YouTube channel,” notes the YouTube Blog.
“No matter where you are in the world or how you’ll be accessing the Internet, you’ll be able to watch the most important events of the 2012 election on YouTube.”
In addition to the live broadcasts, YouTube will provide commentary and analysis via the eight YouTube Election Hub partners: ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, The New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision and the Wall Street Journal.
Each of these partners “will be providing their own unique live and on-demand coverage of the four debates before, during and after. And Univision will also offer a version of the debates translated into Spanish, live,” according to the blog.
For those who may have missed last night’s first Presidential debate from the University of Denver, YouTube has the full debate — in addition to highlight clips — available at youtube.com/politics.
David Watson, director of product innovation at Netflix, writes about his children and their relationship with the iPad.
On the official Netflix blog, he comments about good news for families: “Netflix ‘Just for Kids’ is now available on iPad, the first mobile version of this special kid-friendly Netflix experience. Now parents, including myself, can be sure their kids find what they want and won’t straggle into something that isn’t appropriate.”
The movie and TV content is geared towards kids aged 12 and under in a “friendly way with large images of their favorite characters and genres such as superheroes, girl power and sing-alongs,” he explains.
“Just for Kids” is available on the iPad 2 and newer versions. It will be available on the original iPad and on Android devices at a later date.
When Windows 8 launches later this month, Microsoft will also launch its own news operation as part of its new MSN website.
In July, Microsoft sold its 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com to its longtime partner NBCUniversal in order to do its own coverage.
According to Bob Visse, GM of the MSN Product Management Group, MSN plans to primarily aggregate news from sources including Reuters, the Associated Press and NBC, but also expects to produce its own content.
“Microsoft’s flagship website, which gets about 480 million visitors per month worldwide, is one of the biggest portals on the Internet, alongside Yahoo and AOL, and serves as the gateway to other Microsoft online services such as Outlook mail and Skype online calling,” explains Reuters.
The site is being dramatically overhauled to integrate with the October 26 launch of Microsoft’s touch-optimized Windows 8 system and Internet Explorer 10.
“The new look is designed to appeal to tablet and touch-screen PC users, who can manipulate large icons across the screen and tap on items they want to read,” details the article. “For the first time, the site will have a uniform look across all its sections, from news and sports to money and job listings.”
The allure of mobile TV is there. People want the ability to stream live network programming on their handheld devices. But “delivering that content in ways that don’t abrogate rights agreements and can somehow be monetized has proven mercurial,” writes Variety.
But it may be time for the field to evolve.
“The initiative got a big push recently with the commercial launch of Mobile TV, a Web and mobile service that lets viewers watch live programming from ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as 25 cable channels including CNN, ESPN, MTV, USA and AMC,” notes the article.
A competing service called Dyle Mobile TV runs on a partnership including Fox, NBC, Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co and others.
Aereo is another mobile TV service. But it’s run into a series of legal challenges already. “In July, Aereo scored a key victory when a federal judge refused to block the service at the request of NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox and other content providers. The decision is being appealed,” reports Variety.
Mobile TV likely still has a long way to go. “Cable and satellite companies are still largely opposed to mobile TV broadcasts, as they circumvent traditional outlets among a growing segment of the population. These traditional distributors — mostly cable and satellite companies — remain largely opposed to mobile TV broadcasts, which they feel can carve away a growing, younger, segment of the population.”
As of August, for the first time ever, U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their mobile phones with more frequency and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter, according to comScore data.
“Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users — or DAUs, in Facebook parlance. That tops Twitter’s 6.9 million DAUs over the same period of time,” writes AllThingsD.
“What’s more, the average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile devices in August, the data claims, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing,” notes the article.
And Instagram only has 22 million unique U.S. smartphone-based visitors for August compared to Twitter’s 29 million.
“For a number of reasons, this is a pretty big deal. That the barely-two-year-old Instagram could rocket up in user engagement and retention in such a short amount of time, eventually surpassing Twitter in the process, speaks to the sheer momentum of the photo-sharing product,” according to the article.
But can Instagram figure out how to monetize the product as Twitter has? “eMarketer projects that Twitter will rake in close to $130 million in mobile ad revenue in 2012, nearly doubling that of projections for Facebook, which sit at around $72 million,” reports AllThingsD.
“Lost in the recent noise about Twitter’s developer relations and product designs is that Twitter is quickly (and relatively quietly) becoming a successful advertising business,” reports ReadWriteWeb. “And it’s doing this in its own way: Not by running banner ads or video pre-rolls, but through its own interactive, networked ad products.”
Twitter’s “ad boss” Adam Bain recently took the number one spot on the Adweek list of the top 50 industry power players.
“Twitter is where the new ad wars are being waged,” according to Adweek, noting that “promoted Trend ads now command $120,000 a day — and advertisers have to wait in line.”
“Twitter ads are designed to be human — content, in a brand’s ‘voice,’ but not robotic — and meld with the content around them,” notes the post. “They’re designed to provoke feedback — via favorites, retweets, hashtagged tweets, and replies — in the same medium they’re created and presented in.”
“And advertisers can increasingly target them to people who might actually be interested in their pitch,” adds RWW.
While Twitter’s first priority is still user growth, one could feed into the other. “The result, if everything works, could be a Twitter with many hundreds of millions of users, and a billion-dollar-plus ad business,” concludes RWW.
Dish Network Corp. says it will launch a nationwide broadband service this week under the brand dishNET.
The satellite TV company “is expected to disclose plans to sell broadband, at a speed of between five and 10 megabits per second, for between $39.99 and $69.99 a month for customers who also take Dish’s TV service,” explains the Wall Street Journal.
Those who aren’t already Dish customers will have to pay $10 more per month, similar to the approach used by cable operators.
“Dish’s satellite rival, DirecTV, says it plans to roll out a nationwide broadband offering by the first quarter of next year, in partnership with a number of firms including ViaSat and using Echostar’s satellite,” writes WSJ.
The new dishNET won’t be able to match the high speeds of rivals, but will aim for rural customers with little or no Internet access.
“Some 19 million Americans — 14.5 million in rural areas — remain without access to fixed broadband, according to a report released by the Federal Communications Commission in August,” notes the article.
While banks, merchants and technology companies have bet billions of dollars on mobile payment technology, it’s not likely they’ll see any return for years to come.
“Mobile payments and purchasing at the physical point of sale have experienced little adoption in the U.S. marketplace despite abounding innovation in mobile and payments technologies,” according to a report from Javelin Strategy & Research.
As more people get smartphones, mobile payments in general and NFC (near field communication) specifically will have more room to grow.
That same report from Javelin Strategy & Research estimates that by 2016, 72 percent will own a smartphone, up from the current 51 percent.
“We think NFC is a great user experience and today provides the broadest reach in terms of merchant coverage compared to other technologies,” says Robin Dua, head of product management for Google Wallet.
Many had hoped that the recently released Apple iPhone 5 would come equipped with the NFC-enabled chip in order to push the process along. But the phone does not include an NFC chip.
“Equipping the most popular phone with NFC would have a been huge education moment for consumers and a big validation for NFC,” notes Thomas McCrohan, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott.
While it’s become increasingly necessary for companies to have a social media presence, many CEOs shy away from personal accounts in fear of costly social gaffes.
“Chief executives are under pressure these days to appear accessible and ‘authentic,’ but social media — with its demands for quick, unscripted updates that can quickly go viral — poses risks for top managers and the companies they represent, in the form of lawsuits, leaked trade secrets or angered customers,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
But according to former Medtronic Inc. CEO Bill George, who is now a management professor at Harvard Business School, “people want CEOs who are real. They want to know what you think… Can you think of a more cost-effective way of getting to your customers and employees?”
According to a recent report from CEO.com and the analytics company Domo, seven in 10 Fortune 500 CEOs have no presence on social media at all.
“CEOs who do mind their own accounts have to steer clear of bashing competitors, disparaging customers or opining on polarizing topics like religion and politics,” notes the article.
“When she trains executives on social media, Amy Jo Martin, CEO and founder of social-media agency Digital Royalty Inc., says clients are ‘fearful of sharing too much versus not sharing enough.’ She advises executives to give followers a glimpse, not a guided tour, of their lives.”
According to consumer-tracking service NPD, television sets are now the most popular way to watch streaming video from the Internet.
“NPD says 45 percent of consumers report that TV is now their primary Web video screen, up from 33 percent last year,” reports AllThingsD. “It basically swapped places with the PC, which used to account for 48 percent of viewing but now represents 31 percent.”
At this point, NPD figures that only about 10 percent of homes have an Internet-enabled TV, but consumers are often streaming programming through devices such as their Blu-ray player, Apple TV and Xbox 360.
NPD’s general screen breakdown by device: TV — 45 percent, laptop PC — 17 percent, desktop PC — 14 percent, tablet — 1 percent, netbook — 1 percent.
Also according to the NPD report, Netflix is the most popular streaming service, with 40 percent of connected TV watchers using that service.
New Nielsen numbers reflect the continually shifting television viewing habits of Americans, as the number of U.S. TV households fell by 500,000 — dropping for the second straight year.
“We have had no household formation over the past several years, and I believe there is a modest amount of cord-cutting happening in younger households and in lower-income households,” notes Paul Sweeney, Bloomberg Industries’ director of North American research.
“To the extent that there is cord-cutting, over-the-top companies such as Hulu and Netflix are benefiting,” Sweeney adds. “These households then fall out of Nielsen’s total household mix.”
“Nielsen said it’s working with TV and advertising clients on what should constitute a TV home and how to account for new products such as tablet computers. It has already begun incorporating online viewing into ratings,” according to Bloomberg.
“In addition to sharing new details about its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 OS, RIM used today’s BlackBerry Jam keynote to make an announcement about App World,” reported Engadget on Tuesday.
“The company just revealed that in addition to applications and games, the store will sell music, movies and TV shows — a move that brings it more in line with rival stores like Google Play and Apple’s App Store.”
This will likely please App World’s current 80 million subscribers. According to the keynote, “there are currently 105,000 apps in the store, with 3 billion downloads logged since the store’s opening,” notes the post.
Research In Motion also said new BlackBerry 10 apps will soon increase that total number, as the company will begin accepting app submissions on October 10th.
In a related Engadget post, a video demo shows BB10 running on a new Dev Alpha B handset with 1280×768 screen.
AllThingsD reports that when the new BlackBerry phones finally launch in 2013, it will be a significant challenge to take on the iPhone 5 in addition to new Android and Windows Phone devices. “RIM is touting the ability of the phones to offer better multitasking, and constant access to email and messaging, as features that will help the phones stand out.”
There are now such things as “smart” mirrors — ones that rely on sensors, cameras and flat-panel displays to function beyond the expectations of the traditional, reflective mirror.
“These ‘smart’ mirrors are melding with digital components to act as health-monitoring devices that measure vital signs, in-shop equipment to try on clothes virtually and displays to keep track of news and information,” details the Wall Street Journal.
One such mirror is the Medical Mirror, first introduced in 2010. Among other functions, it uses a camera “to measure a person’s pulse rate based on slight variations in the brightness of the face as blood flows each time the heart pumps,” notes WSJ.
Advanced digital mirrors are also being used in some retail stores to provide customers with “virtual fittings” of clothing. It analyzes the body, then suggests sizes, fits and brands for a person’s body type.
But is there a market for such devices outside of medical and/or retail markets? Would consumers ever have interest enough to buy some sort of technologically advanced mirror? That answer is unclear, according to designers and manufacturers.
